England dropped a place, from 7th to 8th, in the year's
first ranking, as Turkey rose from 9th to 7th. Both teams were idle
during the interval reflected in the January ranking, and so the change in
position must have resulted from the discarding of older results and the
greater weight given to more recent results. England's surprising 3-1
friendly loss to Australia on 12 February did not lead to any immediate damage
in the year's second ranking later the same month, as they remained in 8th
place. Although they did not play during the next ranking period, they
fell a spot to 9th in March, overtaken by Mexico.

But a pair of
2-0 European Championship qualifying victories over Liechtenstein away and
Turkey at home pushed England back ahead of both Turkey and Mexico and into 7th
place in the April ranking. They remained there in the May ranking
despite remaining idle during the ranking period. But three 2-1
victories during the next ranking period--in friendlies away to South Africa
and home to Serbia and Montenegro and in a home European Championship qualifier against
Slovakia--did not prevent them from dropping a rung to eighth in the June
ranking as they were overtaken by Turkey, who made a splash in reaching the
semi-finals at the Confederations Cup tournament in France. And although
they remained idle, they dropped two spots in the July ranking, overtaken by
Mexico, which jumped from 12th to 5th, and the U.S.A., which remained in 9th, both on the strength of their performances at the Gold Cup, the CONCACAF
championship.

England went back up to 8th in the August ranking after
the season-opening 3-1 home friendly win against Croatia, as they overtook
both the U.S.A. and Germany. Although it was England's sixth successive
victory, they had gained only one rung in the ranking ladder since the streak
began, surely a reflection of the vagaries of FIFA's ranking system.
Still, England are four monthly rankings away from remaining within the top 10
teams for the entire calendar year, a feat they have never accomplished since
the ranking system was established a decade ago....